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I've been asked several times to write about the differences between British and American spelling. I started to make a list and then got a bit bored, because there are lots of other such lists on the web. So at the end of this posting I'll link to some sites where you can find them (Check carefully though - some lists say that the British version of bank is *banque - rubbish! It's bank of course.) And there will be a much fuller exploration of British and American English in my book which I talked about in the last posting here.

But today let's look at how US spelling came to be different from English spelling. The big mover and shaker was Noah Webster. In "An Essay on the Necessity, Advantages, and Practicality of Reforming the Mode of Spelling and of Rendering the Orthography of Words Correspondent to Pronunciation" (phew - NOT a snappy title Mr Webster!) written in 1789, he says

It has been observed by all writers, on the English language, that the orthography or spelling of words is very irregular ... The question now occurs; ought the Americans to retain these faults which produce innumerable inconveniencies in the acquisition and use of the language, or ought they at once to reform these abuses, and introduce order and regularity into the orthography of the AMERICAN TONGUE?

Mr Webster thought reform was definitely needed. And he proposed the following changes:

1. "The omission of all superfluous or silent letters." So he wanted bread to be bred, friend to be frend and give to be giv.

2. "A substitution of a character that has a certain definite sound, for one that is more vague and indeterminate." This would give us *neer for near, *laf for laugh, *blud for blood, *wimmin for women and *korus for chorus.

3. "... ch in French derivatives should be changed into sh". So you would do your washing in a *masheen and a *shef would work in a restaurant.Other French spellings would also go, leaving us with *toor (tour) and *obleek (oblique).

4. "A trifling alteration in a character, or the addition of a point would distinguish different sounds, without the substitution of a new character." So here he proposed putting a little line across th to distinguish the voiced and unvoiced sounds. And he suggested using some dots over vowel letters to differentiate them.

Some of these suggestions were adopted at least in part but many of them the public just refused to use.

our got changed to or, so colour became color, but it never got as far as *culor.

re at the end of a word became er, so the British theatre became the US theater but for some reason not always (American National Theatre) and acre didn't become acer (because it would change the pronunciation).

Cheque got shortened to check, but unique didn't ever make it to *uneek (or *yooneek).

So was it a good idea or has it just made spelling more complicated, especially for those learning English as a second or foreign language? Certainly American spellings do look at first sight more logical and regular. On the other hand, there are now often two different spellings to learn, the British and the American. And there are still a lot of inconsistencies. If the reforms had been more complete, maybe this would have been more useful but now there are perhaps more opportunities for confusion, not fewer.

And another issue for me is that English orthography seems to purposely use different spellings to distinguish between most homophones. So check and cheque sound the same but are spelt differently to show they have different meanings. Also tire (to get tired) and tyre (black rubber on the wheel) deliberately, I think, have different spellings. In simplifying these for US English, that difference is lost.

So what about spelling reform generally - does it work? My feeling is that it's something that comes naturally to a language and it's a difficult thing to force on the native speakers of that language. It wouldn't surprise me if *alot replaced a lot, not because anyone in authority has said it should but it is the way many native speakers write it. And maybe u will become the new spelling of you. Capital letters may die out (or is it just a phase we're going through?) and the days of the apostrophe seem numbered (except that it appears where it shouldn't!).

I'd love to hear your opinions:

Is US English easier to spell than British English?

Tell us about other varieties of English (Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Carribean, etc, etc)

17 comments:

Hi Johanna, Great entry :) In Canada, as far as I recall, we use Amercian spelling (ie. no 'u' in colour, 'er' for 'meter' etc.). I seem to remember folks being tolerant of British spelling though (perhaps 'cause Canada's a 'colony')(?) Spanish spelling tends to be much easier...what you hear is what you write. Some people have problems spelling words with 'v' and 'b' as they are pronounced the same but other than that, pretty straightforward! I hope you're doing well :) Can't wait to see your book! Let me know when it's out! Love,nina

Certenly it's easier not to hav to remember when to write -our and when to write -or, as aul such words take -or in American Inglish (with the exception ov Saviour when capitalized and referring to Jesus, and not aulways then). It is obviously easier to consistently write honor, honorable, honorary than to remember honour and honourable but honorary (I have seen occaisional instances ov honourary, even in modern edited British prose). But most ov the improovements that American spelling provides are trivial: encyclopedia is doutless better than encyclopaedia, but probably not enuff better to be wurth maintaining too orthographical standards for what is, after aul, a single language.

Theatre in American Inglish is applied oenly to the stage, and not consistently thare: it wood never be seen in movie theater or theater of war, and Broadway theater is probably more common than Broadway theatre. Ov course, particular theaters can and doo spell their oen names however they like.

As far as I know, oenly the U.K., the U.S., and Canada hav their oen distinct spelling conventions: the other cuntries folloe U.K. spellings, with a few exceptions like the Australian Labor Party (thus spelled since 1912 at the behest ov an American-born leader, says Wikipedia), tho labour is the spelling in Australia generally. Canada, tho, uses British spellings in sum words, American spellings in others: this sign for a tire centre cood only exist in Canada. (A British acquaintance ov mine sed that the phrase sugested to him a place whare peeple go to get tired!)

Spelling reform certenly has worked in other languages from Chinese to Turkish, and moste European languages reform their spellings to sum degree wunce a century or more. English, however, is a uniekly difficult case: it is the official or de facto language ov almost 60 countries, and it has gone unreformed for so long that many chainges wood be required, altho not as menny as moste peeple think.

Occaisionally, American Inglish makes distinctions in spelling that British Inglish duz not: traditionally the electrical safety device wuz a fuse, whareas the device for setting off explosives was a fuze; British Inglish uses fuse for bothe. I doen't think this distinction is consistently made enny more, tho.

(This comment is written in Regularized Inglish spelling, except for whatever mistakes I may hav made. I hope you finde it readable.)

The 'ch' as an 'sh' is from French right-spelling. For that matter, one of few good things that the Norman-French scribes did was giv a few needed diagraphs such as 'ch' and 'sh'. Sadly, they gave us many more bad things than good. Many which still haunt us today.

I don't think that I'v ever seen quire for choir tho I hav seen quer(e) from Old French quer. Quire is a word that has another meaning than choir. Chorus should be korus (or maybe khorus) and choir should be more like kwire.

As for machine, I ween that it would be better as masheen. The spelling "mashien" not only makes me pause but it hurts my eyes and it breaks the right-spelling wisse (guide/rule) that makes the 'e' makes the preceding vowel long … tie, lie, die, fie, hie, pie, vie. Altho the diphthong 'ie' is often found said as 'ee' (and in German right-spelling that is the way it is said but we're not German), it's not sumthing that I would change to. Also, masheen is alreddy found in many writings.

BTW, the Americans say the lieu in lieutenant as 'loo' in loop, thus if the spelling were changed it would be lootenant. However lieu actually makes right-spelling witt if yu say the vowels in a glide; there is no great reason to change it.

What a delightful posting Johanna! Thank you! Like you I think what people do naturally will rule the day, and I find that whilst I'm interested to know what language change is going on, I feel very detached about it - so if 'a lot' becomes 'alot', so what?

Having said that I should admit that I am somewhat confused about spelling. I'm British, but I have been living in the US for the last ten years or so and I find I'm increasingly relying on editors and fellow authors to correct me. The thing is there is a lot of logic (from my perspective) to the changes that Mr.Webster suggested. For example, I find that while I still hesitate over theatre/theater I have little difficulty selecting either according to my UK/US audience. And take cheque/check for example - there's a part of me that itches to write the latter.

Nina - thanks for the Canadian input. Yes, the Spanish do seem to struggle with English spelling IF they assume it's phonetically spelt like their own language. Don't worry, when the book finally comes out I don't expect I'll be keeping quiet about it!

John (Jon?)Thanks for yor long, considerd reply. It's aulways a fun challeng to reed your posts and thay are very informativ too. Personaly I think Inglish is so far from being baste on fonetiks that to try to make it a foneticaly spelt langwidg wood be a big mistake. For egsampel, if I hav ritten 'considerd' and 'baste' as you wood sudgest, thare is nuthing to tell the reeder that thay ar bothe parst (past)tenses. OK I no(know)we hav irregula verbs now, but evrywun nose abaut those.

And Vicki, thank you too for posting your comment from the point of view of a Brit learning American as a foreign language! By the way, Vicki, when I was a newly qualified teacher, I got a job in Paris and when I started discovered I'd been employed to teach business English. Your books got me through that year and I've taught from your materials so much since - they're fantastic. Nice to get a chance to pass that on to you.

As someone who grew up in the Caribbean, did high school in US before moving on over to UK then Oz and beyond, my spelling (and the way I speak) moves around based on what words I learned and when I learnt them ;-) LOL.

In Regularized Inglish, the words considered, challenge, read(er), personally, based, phonetics, phonetically, language, example, and past are in fact spelled in the same way as in traditional orthography (well, RI allows either a or aa in the last two words). As I said, most people overestimate the amount of change required.

The principle of RI is that for each letter or combination of letters, the most common sound is adopted, and words that use that letter or combination to represent a less common sound must be changed. In a few cases such as single vowels, ie, s, and th there are two common sounds, and both are kept. For example, the most common sound of ch is [tS], as in church, and choir and machine, which use less common pronunciations of ch, are changed to quire (the older spelling) and mashien respectively. On the other hand, ph is not changed to f, because it's simply a rule that ph is pronounced /f/, and there is no irregularity.

The final result is a system that ensures that if you know the spelling of a word, you know its pronunciation in your own accent, though not vice versa. Furthermore, the system preserves spelling distinctions between words if they are made in any living accent: RI does not, for example, respell meat as meet or vice versa, because in East Anglia and southern Wales these words are not homonyms. Likewise, if you use the PALM vowel in past, you may spell it paast, but not parst, which would be confusing to almost all North Americans. All these features are intended to make reading English easier, though spelling it will remain hard (though not as hard as with traditional spelling). In a few cases, spellings will be irrevocably split: North Americans will write lutenant and all others leftenant, but at least this represents phonetic reality, unlike the -or/-our and -er/-re distinctions.

The 'ch' as an 'sh' is from French right-spelling. For that matter, one of few good things that the Norman-French scribes did was giv a few needed diagraphs such as 'ch' and 'sh'. Sadly, they gave us many more bad things than good. Many which still haunt us today.

I don't think that I'v ever seen quire for choir tho I hav seen quer(e) from Old French quer. Quire is a word that has another meaning than choir. Chorus should be korus (or maybe khorus) and choir should be more like kwire.

As for machine, I ween that it would be better as masheen. The spelling "mashien" not only makes me pause but it hurts my eyes and it breaks the right-spelling wisse (guide/rule) that makes the 'e' makes the preceding vowel long … tie, lie, die, fie, hie, pie, vie. Altho the diphthong 'ie' is often found said as 'ee' (and in German right-spelling that is the way it is said but we're not German), it's not sumthing that I would change to. Also, masheen can be found in many books.

BTW, the Americans say the lieu lieutenant as 'loo' in loop thus if the spelling were changed it would be lootenant. However lieu actually makes right-spelling sense and there is no great reason to change it.

As a teacher of dyslexics I would appreciate any changes that would make spelling (UK or North American) more simple and easier to learn. Most adults with a good level of literacy find many words difficult to remember correctly and reliably, for dyslexics this is multiplied many times over.

Rule generalizations always have exceptions. It's easier to "look for the fastball and adjust to the curve," rather than the converse. I have a nice list of the spelling rules with examples and MP3s of spelling rule songs and raps to check out at Spelling Rules Songs and Raps.

A very informative post! I didn't know any of the history of this previously! Us Aussies definately attempt to follow British spelling conventions, but get very frustrated by Microsoft spell checkers telling us we are wrong all the time when we spell 'colour' or anything ending in 'ise' (it wants 'ize'). I was facinated to learn recently that some American English words are actually not American inventions but closer to the original 'Old' or 'Middle' English that was spoken in England long ago. Words such as 'fall' for Autumn and 'trash' for rubbish came across with the settlers in the 1700s. English in Britain continued to change but in America many words 'froze' in time.Anyway, interesting stuff. Thanks!

John. It's interesting that even Regularized English spelling has irregularities! And I didn't realise it had flexibility built in. As you say easier for reading than writing. By the way, as an East Anglian myself, I can't hear any differences between 'meat' and 'meet', even when putting on my strongest Norfolk accent.

Grammar teacher. I've just read a really interesting book about helping dyslexics with spelling, based on NLP: Seeing Spells Achieving by O Hickmott and A Bendefy,

Mark. I think if you use the word 'rules' with learners you have to be very clear that they are only generalisations, otherwise they seee English spelling as defective. Also I've found some of the so-called rules commonly-taught to be pretty poor when put under the microscope, e.g. 'When two vowels go walking the first one does the talking' - this only works for very few vowel combinations - but that's another blog post.

Ronaldo. Love it! Have you seen the book Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn? It's a novel about an island that keeps losing letters of the alphabet and having to adapt its language accordingly. I haven't read it yet, but it looks really whacky and comes strongly recommended.

Richard, can't you change the MS Word language to Australian English? Mind you, I do find that mine does sometimes revert to US English when I'm not looking (e.g. after I've pasted something in US English into my text). I didn't know about 'trash' and 'fall'. In fact some (British) English dictionaries prefer '-ize' endings to '-ise'. But I'm an '-ise'-gal myself!

The principle of RI is that for each letter or combination of letters, the most common sound is adopted, and words that use that letter or combination to represent a less common sound must be changed. In a few cases such as single vowels, ie, s, and th there are two common sounds, and both are kept. For example, the most common sound of ch is [tS], as in church, and choir and machine, which use less common pronunciations of ch, are changed to quire (the older spelling) and mashien respectively. On the other hand, ph is not changed to f, because it's simply a rule that ph is pronounced /f/, and there is no irregularity.learn spelling games

I was wrong to attribute the lack of the meet/meat merger to Norfolk; it's traditional Yorkshire accents that continue to distinguish these groups of words.

What is still prevalent in the accents of East Anglia, South Wales, and Newfoundland is the absence of the complete pane/pain and toe/tow mergers, which have run to completion everywhere else in the Anglosphere. The pane/pain distinction is probably gone by now from Norfolk (it eroded word by word during the 20th century, says sociolinguist and dumpling-eater Peter Trudgill), but the toe/tow distinction is said to still be in use.

About Me

I'm a freelance English language teaching consultant.
I am particularly interested in teaching spelling as it is an area of
language teaching that is often ignored but it is a real struggle for
some people.
For more about me, go to http://www.elgweb.net/aboutme.html